British spies disown Saddam weapons claims

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British spies have reportedly disowned the intelligence that underpinned the prewar claims of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that Saddam Hussein presented a serious threat and had to be deposed.

The claims come just days before a report on the reliability of Britain's prewar intelligence is published, and as fresh claims emerge that Mr Blair considered quitting politics last month.

Several cabinet ministers and Mr Blair's wife, Cherie, were instrumental in talking him out of quitting under pressure of a fall in Labour's support, mainly due to his handling of Iraq.

Mr Blair, now into his eighth year in office, has faced constant criticism over the war and speculation that his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, will move against him.

Labour faces a battle to hold on to two supposedly safe seats in by-elections in the Midlands on Thursday, the day after the publication of the Butler inquiry into prewar intelligence.

According to a poll in the Mail on Sunday yesterday, more than half of voters believe Mr Blair should resign if the inquiry finds he lied about Iraq's weapons.

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In a move to blunt the political fallout from the report, Mr Blair admitted recently that Saddam's weapons might never be found.

He is expected to use the publication of the report to draw a line under controversy over Iraq. A Labour source said voters wanted to move on from the war and its damaging aftermath.

But claims that senior spies have taken the unusual step of withdrawing intelligence advice because it was found to be incorrect will add to the pressure on Mr Blair. They were due to be aired last night on the BBC TV program Panorama.

Mr Blair claimed in the foreword to the Government's September 2002 dossier that assessed intelligence that it had established beyond all doubt that Saddam had continued to produce banned weapons.

Mr Blair will come under pressure to say when he became aware that the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq was considered unreliable by agencies.

The Butler report is expected to focus on the role played by senior Blair staff in preparing and changing the dossier that included the discredited claim that Saddam could deploy weapons within 45 minutes.

Mr Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and his former director of communications Alastair Campbell are likely to be cited as exercising undue influence over the dossier written by John Scarlett, then head of the supreme spy body, the Joint Intelligence Committee. This committee is supposed to provide independent, non-political intelligence advice to the Government.

The inquiry has reportedly seen minutes of a March 2002 meeting in Downing Street during which senior officials discussed how the available intelligence was not strong enough to support invading Iraq.

The meeting, reported by the Financial Times, took place six months before the release of the September dossier in which Mr Blair claimed that Saddam was a serious and current threat. Mr Scarlett has since been promoted to head the spy agency MI6.

A former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, has said that responsibility for intelligence failings and their use must rest with Mr Blair. But she also suggested that Mr Scarlett should step down from his MI6 post if the Butler report criticised him.

Mr Blair has constantly defended the invasion of Iraq as the correct and moral action and insists that Saddam was a threat, even though all efforts have failed to uncover evidence to confirm the claims of weapons stockpiles.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said Mr Blair would not comment on the Butler report in advance of its publication. She insisted that Mr Blair had no intention of leaving politics in the near future.